Fair Trade Forum at the University of Bradford
Tuesday 1 March University of Bradford Sustainability Society held an open forum attended by more than 40 students, staff and visitors. Professor P B Anand led the introductions which revealed the diversity of interested people who were there to learn more about Fairtrade, with some expressing the hope they could take back this information to their home countries. Many of these are low-income countries, some of which already have International Fairtrade operating there.
Bubotu Hachitapika, President of Sustainability Society, said, “There was another short presentation made by a visiting PhD student from Uganda about a cooperative of farmers in Uganda that works with Fairtrade and the benefits they have gained from working with them. He also highlighted that they produce vanilla and some of this is used in the famous Ben and Jerrys ice cream.”
These additional discussion points touched on difficult questions which will remain as items on the agenda of the Fairtrade movement:
· how to increase Fairtrade’s reach to poorer farmers in rural areas
· the cost of joining Fairtrade for a farmer
· the need to increase awareness about the work Fairtrade does
· the importance of knowing where our food comes from (general public)
· how to encourage more big companies to use Fairtrade products
· the importance of encouraging farmers to diversify crops grown
